Adopting and adapting open textbooks: School teachers' readiness and expectations

This paper describes a study on an open textbook project, which aims to establish a sustainable system for providing quality open textbooks for adoption and adaptation at minimal cost. A survey was conducted, covering 167 teachers in local primary and secondary schools, to determine how ready the school teachers are for using open textbooks and the kind of support they require. The results show that a majority of the participating teachers have limited familiarity or experience with open textbooks. It is common for the teachers to adopt and adapt resources on the internet for teaching, showing that open textbooks will meet their needs. However, their limited computer skills in image, video and web page editing may present difficulties for them in revising the resources. On the basis of these findings, the challenges and future support for teachers in using open textbooks are discussed.